The present invention relates to the textile field and more specifically relates to a method for manufacturing hosiery items such as socks, stockings, pop socks and the like, and to the related improved knitting and toe stitching machines therefor.
Hosiery items such as socks, stockings, pop socks and the like, hereinafter generically termed "hosiery", are currently knitted mainly by means of high-speed circular machines starting from the top down to the toe or vice versa.
These machines have electronic or mechanical programming that controls the relative movements of needles, hooks, thread guides and other components and elements of the machine in order to obtain different kinds of knitting according to the different effects to be provided on the item of hosiery.
For example, a hosiery item such as a sock is currently manufactured by knitting the following portions in succession: double top, body, heel, foot, and toe. A few rows of "trim", i.e. rows with very loose stitches, are usually knitted after the toe, followed by a thicker trimming and by a hemstitch. At this point the thread guides are raised and the threads are cut.
When knitting ends, the hosiery items still have a tubular shape which is open at the level of the toe, and it is necessary to stitch this toe; this stitching is currently often performed with automatic stitching machines that require an operator to load the hosiery items manually one by one. Chain means move the hosiery items towards heads for cutting the waste constituted by the hemstitch, by the trimming and by part of the trim rows, and stitch the open toe so that the hosiery items have perfectly and uniformly closed toes.
Although some stitching machines for hosiery items, such as for example those manufactured in Italy by the companies Rosso, Conti Complett and Exacta, have achieved very high working speeds, a limit to productivity is set by the fact that each hosiery item is inserted manually and the operator must be careful to stretch the end part of the toe that includes the trimming, which is normally curled and uneven at the end of the knitting. This trimming must in fact lie on one side of an insertion guide, whereas the rest of the hosiery item must be on the opposite side, and the trim rows are made to slide in the guide until the traction means grip them.
Accordingly, the presence of the trimming after the trim rows has the purpose of ensuring correction insertion on the guide, although it entails a waste of thread which is hardly negligible for large-scale productions such as those normally occurring in this sector. Furthermore, the incidence of the time wasted by the operator to fit each hosiery item on the stitching machine on the cost of each hosiery item is very important, since this operation currently cannot be automated.
Some toe stitching machines, such as for example those manufactured by the United States company Detexomat, instead fit the hosiery items on tubular guides, from which they are then picked up by traction means that take them to be stitched. With these machines the positioning time of the operator is shorter, but the waste of thread is significantly higher, as the hosiery items need a double trimming after the trim rows and in any case still require that one hosiery item at a time be loaded.